How can this problem be fixed?

Lol, feces from every species...

Mike Rowe is a genius. But with the volume of folks receiving cash, cellphones, food, healthcare from the government, it will be near impossible to convince anyone to start doing dirty jobs. As long as the government can keep printing money, there is little hope. If people start starving, you can bet those jobs will be filled somehow.

Is the challenge that no one WANTS to do the work, or no one CAN do the work?

Is it an attitude problem or a skills deficit?

My interpretation of his perspective is that the problem is really both.

Political discussions on the money supply and the proper role of government in social and economic issues aside, there is a real skills gap.

I believe he is saying this is a combination of cultural attitudes about the work, about the people that do the work, and issues with access to information and training.

In that light, this is actually a step in the right direction, right? http://codeyear.com/

I wonder if KhanAcademy-style and CodeAcademy-style online lessons could be created for offline skills?

There are definitely some good welding tutorials on YouTube.

Anything that involves pure information can be taught this way, but at some point it has to go beyond just an abstract exercise, which for welding means welding things.

There's a skills gap in tech and I am skeptical that finger painting with javascript will close much of it.

I'm really interested to see where this experiment goes: http://hungryacademy.com/

Half school, half interview, it's almost like an apprenticeship model.

That's only for one company though.

To the points made earlier, there has to also be a lack of talent pursuing some of these jobs in many cases.

I found these notes on the fall of Rome somehow relevant:

Reason why the Roman Empire fell - Unemployment of the Working Classes (The Plebs)

Cheap slave labor in turn resulted in the unemployment of the the people of Rome who became dependent on hand-outs from the state. The Romans attempted a policy of unrestricted trade but this led to working class Romans being unable to compete with foreign trade. The government were therefore forced to subsidize the working class Romans to make up the differences in prices. This resulted in thousands of Romans choosing just to live on the subsides sacrificing their standard of living with an idle life of ease. The massive divide between the rich and the poor increased still further.